For growing D2C brands making between $1M and $5M in annual revenue, every marketing dollar counts, and misallocating that budget can have serious consequences. In this episode, Greg Shuey explores how to prioritize marketing investments when resources are limited. He explains that many founders reach this “weird middle stage” where they’ve proven product-market fit but lack the budget or bandwidth to run multiple channels effectively. The key isn’t to do everything, it’s to do the right things in the right order. Greg outlines a clear, phased approach for stacking Google Ads, SEO, and AI-driven optimization efforts based on ROI timeline, effort, and cost.
Greg recommends starting with Google Ads because it delivers fast feedback and revenue, enabling brands to validate which categories, keywords, and creative drive performance. With those learnings, brands can confidently layer in SEO, building out content and optimizing pages around already-proven queries. While SEO takes longer to mature, its compounding returns dramatically improve profit margins over time. Finally, he introduces AI search optimization, the process of increasing brand visibility in AI platforms like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and other LLMs. Though still evolving, brands who start early can gain meaningful exposure and future-proof their marketing.
To illustrate the power of this framework, Greg shares a case study of a women’s fashion brand that transitioned from Meta ads to a Google-first strategy. Within six months, they saw a nearly 50% lift in revenue through sequential investments in paid search, SEO, and AI search optimization. Greg closes with reflections on common pitfalls: waiting too long to start SEO, assuming ad channels will scale forever, trying to do too much too soon, and ignoring AI platforms altogether. His message is clear: profitable growth comes not from doing everything at once, but from strategically stacking the right channels at the right time.
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
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